


Odin

by tsuruko



Series: Eidolons and Their Tales [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Character Death (Serah Farron), Gen, Hope/Noel Established Relationship, heavy on terminology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuruko/pseuds/tsuruko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eidolons exist to deliver hope when all is lost. This is the story of Odin, and his pilots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odin

**Author's Note:**

> trips into the room... Hey! So, a while back, someone I follow on twitter had mentioned a Pacific Rim/Final Fantasy XIII crossover with Serah and Lightning as pilots and... I tried so hard, but lost motivation halfway through, so this is part one. I hope and pray that I'll find the motivation to finish this up, and write the one I had planned for Vanille and Fang, as well. I'll add a little index for terminology at the end! But I hope it makes sense and I'm so... so sorry for this ksdajhflk 
> 
> I would like to remind you before you jump in: this work is not completed, think of this as part one! I'm sorry again.

The Eidolon was a Mark-6: the first of its kind, shiny and new. The only glimpses caught of it were all hunter green and etched gold, pictures taken in secret while peering around barricades in the Coliseum and drawn ideas from people that claimed to have the inside scoop. All written information and blueprints were stored in ‘top secret’ manila envelopes, warnings to keep wandering eyes off of them scrawled in every language that possessed the phrase. Message boards exploded with their own ideas days after the announcement of the new Eidolon and theories were posted faster than most people could read them and form their own opinions. The concept art—sketches from artists around the world with a flared interest in this new being—peppered the newspapers on Cocoon and were accompanied by lengthy articles about the Eidolon, speculations about everything from the height to if the pilots would now wear suits capable of self-cleaning. Every article was something new to shake one’s head at. No one really knew what was coming when it was pulled out from behind the curtain, unexpectedly, on a Wednesday evening.

Odin was painted in deep greens and silvers, white with lilac and gold accents, towering eighty meters high and the sunset brushing against its shoulder while it stood outside of the PSICOM headquarters in Palumpolum. The mouths of those standing in the freshly-formed crowd hung agape and more than muted awe-struck expressions rang out by the time the news crews had shown up. The Eidolon was entirely different than what was known for their kind thus far, and the designs for Odin looked as if someone had poured their heart and soul into the molds along with the steel.

He was the first of his kind with clear-cut features: eyes almond-shaped and carved above a nose that looked far too human, a tightly clenched set of lips below that. Odin was a stern looking fellow, an adversary that no fal’Cie would want to challenge (or so PSICOM and the Academy hoped) in the coming months. The white flag normally signalling surrender flew behind the Eidolon as another frequently questioned addition, but this time, quoted from someone called Nabaat that had worked on the team responsible for Odin’s speed and surprising dexterity, the white flag stood for a borrowed American concept: something joyous beginning.

The pilots—called l’Cie on paper—chosen for Odin were showcased in that Wednesday’s special broadcast, as well. A pair of girls that could have been twins, if not for the crease between the brow of the taller one. She was the elder. They sported the lightest of light pink hair and blue eyes to die for, neither more beautiful than the other, albeit an out-of-the-box choice for the pilots. The Eidolon had an air of intimidation more present than any of the past, but these two, the Farron sisters, they were called, reacted the opposite of the public. They handled standing beside a giant rather well, a smile painted on the face of the younger sister—Serah, the world was told, the elder requesting to be called Lightning in the middle of Serah beginning to answer with something else.

Reporters questioned them thoroughly while they stood beside Commander Rygdea, Serah answering each question enthusiastically while Lightning spoke in a very controlled manner each time something was specifically directed toward her. They were made for television, one reporter commented when their station panned away, one sister mysterious, the other lovable and more than likely to become the idol of her age group, which had been ‘sorely lacking one beforehand.’

Serah Farron, however, did not live past Odin’s second excursion. They were taken down by a fal’Cie—Anima was the name they had given it—that stood with its head level with Odin’s chest. The Eidolon bashed in and Serah pulled free, gone before those monitoring the sisters could even comprehend what was happening on Cocoon. Her screams echoed back to them in datalogs, but they were fresh in the mind of Lightning Farron, still connected through a system called the Oracle Drive which allowed the pilots of Eidolons to share a consciousness while they fought, two halves of one whole. When Serah had been yanked out of Odin, the Oracle Drive had still been connected between the sisters, and while Serah disappeared into the depths of the fal’Cie that had attacked Palumpolum, Lightning was left with her emotions, her last feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, and her desire to fight for a better future crushed as easily as her bones.

The elder Farron sister returned to the Coliseum on her own, someone managing to persuade Odin with only half of a whole mind to move at her will and her will alone. Odin went in for repairs, and Lightning did not speak a word for five days straight. She sat in the room she had shared with Serah, quiet, motionless, neither drop of liquid nor morsel of food ingested while she waited for her Eidolon’s recovery.

Memorial services were held a handful of days later, but few invited were brave enough to show. No one knew what to say to Lightning, no one thought they could look Serah’s fiancé, Snow Villiers, an avid Eidolon enthusiast and mechanic for the Coliseum, in the eyes and apologize for his loss. The pictures made the news, though, Lightning and Snow sitting side-by-side in one shot, Snow shouting something at Lightning before storming away, no comment made afterwards.

When Odin was revealed as fixed, there was another press conference that Lightning herself had requested. The news teams gathered around the Coliseum again, and with the lights of their cameras on and microphones poised around the l’Cie, Lightning turned her head to look up at Odin and spoke only a small amount before Commander Rygdea stepped in in her place. 

“I make my own fate,” she had said. “I’ll keep looking for hope until I find some."

* * *

The articles that detailed this history, accompanied by pictures snipped from magazines and specials, decorated the walls of an apartment belonging to one Hope Estheim in an area of Cocoon further from the Coliseum than most Academy employees lived. From Odin’s official announcement to a newspaper headline of Lightning Farron’s last comment, a tidbit from each event, important or otherwise, was thumbtacked up as a decoration in the small one-room place, almost all that one could see upon entering. Hope Estheim himself was rather proud of this, though, and there was a distinct lightness to his tone whenever he spoke of the Mark-6 Eidolon, a glint in his eye that unearthed the fondness for Odin whenever he was mentioned.

Presently, Hope Estheim, twenty-two and beginning his last year at the Academy’s prep school, sat cross-legged on the small patch of floor between his futon and the little television in his apartment, watching that night’s special broadcast of the events in the Coliseum since Lightning Farron’s speaking up. Behind him, sinking defiantly into the pillows pressed against the wall as a makeshift couch, sat one Noel Kreiss, twenty-one and pouting.

Noel did not indulge in the same hobbies that his friend did, did not hold any interest in Eidolons other than a thanks for their (and their pilot’s) saving of the world. He did not see the appeal to idolizing something made from steel, and normally, would have said something along those lines if Hope had given him the chance. Hope had taken to shutting out the grump when broadcasts were on, as the only thing the two really fought over was Hope’s wonderment directed toward the Eidolons.

The only desire Hope could recall having from when he was younger was to work closely with the Eidolons, to help find a way to keep the fal’Cie from destroying the world, and studying at the Academy brought him only a short walk from the Coliseum each day he attended classes. Most people that he knew were terrified of something so large, something designed to kill (as his late mother labeled them) but Hope was fascinated, much to Noel’s dismay. Noel had always been protective of the people he cared about, of Hope, and the idea of someone that he held near as a l’Cie was something that he was not willing to even consider. Noel would veto the idea before it was even halfway thought up.

The two had been friends for longer than either could remember, and met just as Hope’s need to study these creatures began. Noel never took to it, but followed Hope to the Academy for lack of a better idea of what to do with his life. They were close friends, closer than most, and Noel had followed Hope nearly his whole life. They shared an apartment, a futon, a bath and a kiss each time they parted or were close to sleep; it was natural for them, beginning in the second year attending the Academy together. It made sense to share everything they had with one another, from clothes to affection, because neither of them really needed anyone else, neither really had anyone else. It was easier this way, tangled in each other constantly, and years had passed without a change.

When the broadcast that Noel was reluctantly watching with his friend ran a commercial, Hope turned to him, the light lingering just on the corner of his eyes while he stared at Noel with a dreamy, almost shy, smile. What Noel felt for the light Hope reserved for Eidolons was close to hatred, but not once did he mention it to him. It wasn’t necessary, not now.

“I wonder who’s going to pilot with her now,” he said, crawling forward on the carpet to sit beside Noel’s knee, his own pulled to his chest. “They won’t let her go it alone. She can’t."

Noel exhaled in a huff. “They’ll find someone. Half of Cocoon’s eager to be in that cockpit. Hell, all of Cocoon wants to see the Eidolon up close, touch the paint-job.” He reached forward and poked Hope’s cheek, his hand dropping tiredly to the futon seconds later.

Hope turned his eyes to the articles, a shelf above them holding a completed model kit of Odin, white flag swaying in the breeze from the open window below it, and a small memorial print to Serah that a local magazine had run not long after it had happened. It was framed, situated beside an aged picture of his mother. There were few things he cared about more than Eidolons and the people using them to protect humanity. He thought the world of them, and Noel had his ideas on why.

“I know,” he said, the news back by then but nothing about Odin being said. “Part of me wants to weasel my way in and tell them to pick me, but I wouldn’t be able to handle it, I think.” His eyes drifted back to where Noel sat, sleepy smile replacing the one that was reserved for another world. “Oracle Drives are scary things. I dunno how I feel about someone else being in my head like that."

With a weary chuckle, Noel switched the television off and laid down on his side. The clock read past midnight. They had to be up in almost six hours. “We’ll sneak in and offer you to their cause tomorrow.”

Hope curled against Noel’s side, pulling blankets over the two of them, nose pressed to his collarbone while his eyes shut slowly of their own volition. He mumbled something that Noel only caught half of—staying late after classes and thank you—before he, too, fell asleep what felt like only minutes before their morning alarm was set to sound.

* * *

The Thursday paper was clutched in Lightning’s hand while she sat in the mess hall hours before the rest of the Coliseum joined her, a cup of coffee and plate of eggs and kale beside her. She read over the words reporters forced into her mouth with an expression so easily passive it had to have been practiced. It had only been a year since Odin’s launch, since she became a l’Cie with her sister, but it felt as if it had been a lifetime—months upon months of reading about herself, her family, things that really had no business being public knowledge (her childhood, schooling, poking fun at the idea of her not having had her first kiss at the age of twenty-seven. It stirred together and, when it finally was dumped on end over her head, it sloughed off of her easily, with a shrug. Lightning knew what would come with becoming a l’Cie, she had been warned time and time again, but Serah had been so dead-set on being a part of the cause (“If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem!” she had said,) that Lightning could not refuse joining her.

Serah had said they were going to save the world, and Lightning believed her sister with every ounce of her being, believed her even as Serah was no longer sitting beside her that morning, playing with her food while she rambled on and on about things that Lightning never really listened to. Part of her wished she had been listening. The days that had passed after Serah’s death had been filled with Lightning trying tirelessly, spending hours and hours and sleeping only short periods of time, to pretend that Serah wasn’t really gone, to remember the things her sister had been talking about that morning, before the alarm had sounded and they had been deployed with Odin.

Dropping the paper to the tabletop, Lightning reached blindly with trembling hands for her plate, her coffee, stabbing at the now cold food and peering into the cup of murky black, bile rising in her stomach again but she knew that she needed to eat. Her actions were mechanical, and her meal was gone before Lightning realized that she had opened her mouth. She heard the door creak several yards away from her and knew that it was the cooks finally filing in. Each morning, Lightning had cooked for Serah and herself: eggs, toast, bacon, if they had it, and something green despite Serah’s protests, because they needed it. The cooks knew her—everyone knew her, of course, but this specific group of people berated the Farron sisters each and every morning for being up before the sun, telling them that they needed their sleep—and each one gave her a pitying expression when their eyes fell on Lightning sitting alone every morning.

By the entrance of the third cook, Lightning could no longer handle the glances they were shooting her and pushed away from the table, gathering the paper and her empty tray. She deposited everything in the wash bin and heaved the newspaper into the trash before leaving the room in a flurry of pink hair and clothes that matched her Eidolon’s colors to the hue. She walked toward the front gates of the Coliseum and kept walking, nodding at the guards and their chidings of ‘be good out there,’ and ‘be back before sunset.’

Taking a route that she was not sure of, Lightning ended up pushing open the doors of the main sciences building of the Academy—Augusta Tower, built immediately after the more senescent parts of the Academy, thirteen years younger than the buildings surrounding it—not knowing how she got there, but knowing exactly where she was headed upon arriving. The Tower, bricks and high, arching windows on all sides of the building, stood fifty-two stories in the air and seemed to stretch higher than the Coliseum itself. When she had looked up at it during her first visit, Lightning could have sworn that it was taller than Odin, as well.

Lebreau worked on the thirteenth floor in a lab that could, if they so chose, claim sole responsibility for Odin’s creation. She was the direct assistant of the man in charge of the Eidolon program, the man that had thought up the gimmick of fighting fire with fire. Bartholomew Estheim gave the go after Lebreau designed the beasts. He asked the questions to test functionality when Lebreau brought sketches, blueprints and data to him. Those blueprints and data were framed on the wall like trophies, a nameplate below them read ‘Odin’ on the first line, ‘created 28AF’ on the second. The room was immaculately kept, white walls with framed Eidolon designs, failed ideas and the currently used, speckling them between the towering shelves housing volumes and indexes of things that Lightning couldn’t comprehend even if she tried. What Lebreau and her team did was something near magic, and Lightning visited the lab regularly in her free time while waiting on Odin to watch the progress on her Eidolon’s coming to be. Serah often accompanied her, but Lebreau had a special place in her heart—her lab, rather, as Lightning was usually stuck with the job of passing her friend things that Lebreau had to describe to her as ‘that thing to your right’ after saying the object’s actual name—for Lightning, and on days that were particularly bad for her, they sat in silence: Lighting reading and Lebreau tapping away on her keyboard.

Bartholomew was hardly around, more often than not holed up in his office a few floors above, going over and over things that Lebreau had checked and triple-checked. Even with his attention needed on all fifty-two floors of Augusta Tower at once, and his mind going several floors higher than that on a regular basis, nothing was put into production without his say-so. Lebreau had expressed on numerous occasions that that was unnecessary, but rules were rules, she would say, heave a sigh, and go back to work.

Somewhere between when Lightning nudged open the door to Lebreau’s lab and before she could finish her greeting, Lebreau looked up from her drafting table and, with a grin, yelled, “Oh, good! You’re here!”

Yuj and Maqui, Gadot not far behind, poked their heads out from various corners of the large room, copying their boss’ grin upon seeing Lightning in the doorway. Those two harbored feelings for Lightning close to those felt by younger siblings, and, not that Lightning would admit it, she felt the tingle of a happiness not felt in some time bubble up when Yuj and Maqui ran to fist-bump and hug her, respectively. Gadot nodded from where he sat at the computer, still unsure of how to act in her presence. Snow was his best friend, and Snow’s feeling for Lightning were muddled still, to put it plainly. Lightning gave him a reverent nod in response, and Lebreau gripped her elbow to pull her close to where she had been planted before.

“They’re looking for a copilot for you upstairs, you know.” Lebreau informed her, head ducked as if this was a secret blown. “Rygdea was down here last night asking a few questions about Odin’s inner workings. I didn’t hide anythi—”

Lightning interrupted her, sitting down on the stool at the table beside Lebreau’s. “Why would you need to? Odin’s not something that can be kept secret.”

“The Oracle Drive, I mean.” Lebreau responded, waving the boys back to their work before resuming her own. “Odin’s is… Shit, it’s _special_ , Lightning. That’s why only you and Serah could operate him. It takes such a strong connection to even turn the ignition key in that big lug! The l’Cie inside him have’ta connect the right way.”

“So you’re saying that I can’t pilot Odin without her?” The lump rose back into her throat easily after being freshly swallowed down. This was not the news she hoped for. Lightning had vowed late at night following Serah’s memorial to not back down, to keep working for what Serah wanted. Something inside of her said that she wouldn’t stop, even if Odin was ripped away from her.

“No! Gods, no.” Lebreau looked at her like she was insane for even thinking such a thing. Lightning was visibly far less tense than she had been when she walked in. “They’re looking for a _copilot_ , not a replacement. Rygdea asked if I had any suggestions from the kiddos that I teach and I gave him my recommendations, but he took all of the files for everyone of legal age to that room with him.” She turned to her drawing, which, up close, Lightning noticed was not work, but a sketch of Odin’s fist slamming into the face of Anima. Lightning looked away. “I don’t know if he even went home last night, to be honest.”

“How many people over eighteen are in the Academy, anyway?"

“Shit…” Lebreau lolled her head back, looking at the impossibly white ceiling above them. “Maybe eighty? I dunno, Lightning. I only teach ten of them.” She leaned back and smiled down at her sketch, watching Lightning look at it. Like the blueprints, Lebreau scrawled a tiny ‘LB’ in her elegant script in the lower right hand corner and shifted to roll the work like a cheap poster. “Do you want this?” She asked, looking up at Lightning again. “It could hang on your wall or something. And Estheim won’t want to see it around here.”

With a nod, Lightning took the drawing and held it closer to her chest than she realized. In the back of her mind, she had already plotted where she would hang it.

There was something Serah had once said in an interview when when she had been flustered, something she just spat out, and it was too honest for it to be anything but exactly what she meant. The paper she had interviewed with had printed it as the headline and it was the only newspaper clipping Lightning had ever tapped to her side of the room.

‘The point is,’ it read, and each time she glanced at it, Lightning heard the words in her sister’s voice. ‘I have people I can count on. I’ll make it through.’ In bold black letters, Serah spoke to her from months back, and it tore at Lightning’s chest when she thought about it. Imagining the drawing hanging in their room, Lightning couldn’t think of a better place to put it.

* * *

Each Thursday began in the same fashion for Hope. He and Noel stumbled out of bed and readied themselves for the day, gathered their things, and left their tiny, fifth floor apartment by six-forty-five, dressed in their Academy whites (and yellows and greys and blues). Noel grabbed breakfast for them at Mrs. Gillen’s bakery while Hope swooped in for coffee at the place next door. They met up again on the sidewalk, Hope handed Noel his coffee—three sugars and heavy on cream—and Noel handed Hope his croissant—toasted with cream cheese—before they made a mad dash for the train, barely making it into their seats before it took off toward the Academy.

They ate and sipped their coffees on the train, talking about everything that came to mind and nothing all at once and half an hour later, they split for classes. Hope walked alone to Augusta Tower—the Academy’s director and his father, Bartholomew Estheim, already there and had been for hours—and Noel headed for the Histories and Philosophies building. 

It was an easy morning, but Thursdays, when Hope had his advanced physics class with Lebreau first thing, packed an extra punch. Alyssa Zaidelle arrived a moment after Hope did each Thursday as if by some kind of practiced accuracy. She grinned when she spotted Hope, though he changed where he sat every time after finally picking up on what Alyssa was doing, and waved like they were old friends before making her way to the seat on his immediate left. Nothing deterred her: not the instances when Hope sat on the end of the row with someone planted on his left (she asked them not too kindly to vamoose), not when he saved the seats beside him for people that did not exist (when the door closed, she would shrug, mention her apologies for them not being able to make it, and move the falsified belongings to the seat on Hope’s right). He was not sure what Alyssa wanted from him, and was too afraid to outright question her on it. When he told Noel all of this, the brat laughed at him and teased him about his schoolmate’s crush on him.

He had begun to accept it right before midterms the semester previous, when Alyssa did not let up after weeks of his trying to thwart her, and gave her a curt nod when she smiled and waved. This morning, after staying up past his normal hour for the special Wednesday night broadcast, Hope was in no mood to deal with her. He remained quiet while Alyssa rattled on about what she had accomplished last night, gave a tight-lipped answer when she asked about Noel—her interest in Noel was not in the least bit genuine and that, more than her persistence, the way she spoke, irked Hope on Thursdays—and politely declined the piece of gum she offered him, choosing to go on with breakfast breath rather than accepting.

“Did you see the news last night?” She asked, tone neutral and grinding at Hope’s nerves like sandpaper. “I hear they’re looking for a new l’Cie for Odin! How cool would it be to pilot something like that?”

“It would be cool,” Hope commented offhandedly, disguising the fact that he hadn’t stopped thinking about it since he had woken up that morning.

“They’re upstairs _right now_  looking over files to test people,” Alyssa went on, scribbling the date at the top of a blank notebook page. “Probably looking for someone with practice. Apparently, there’s a few pilots from… I don’t remember, somewhere _else_ , that might be up for the job. A couple, y’know,  _husband and wife_ … Of course it would be sad to see dear Lightning go, too, but the world needs saving.”

Hope tried his best to drown her out as she continued speaking right into his ear, tapped his pen on the desk in front of him for something, anything, to focus on other than her voice. He counted the minutes until Lebreau would walk through the door and save him from this personalized Hell, but when the countdown ended, it was not their professor that stepped into the classroom, but Commander Rygdea, followed by two PSICOM guards, then Lebreau herself. She seemed timid, on edge, and her eyes stayed, fixed, on Hope when she spotted him. Things slowed around him while the Commander remained silent, every neuron in Hope’s brain tingling with the knowledge that this somehow had something to do with him.

“I apologize for providing your class with a late start,” Commander Rygdea began, looking anywhere but at Hope. “But if Hope Estheim is in the class this morning, I’d like him to stand and follow me, please.”

Without much hesitation, much thought, really, Hope stood from his seat, gathering his stuff wordlessly and shoving it back into his backpack before walking, with trembling legs and feet prickling as if the blood was just returning to them, to the front of the classroom. The Commander offered him a tense, tired smile and nodded once, then turned to leave the room with the door he had come in. Lebreau gave him as encouraging a look as possible, but the expression in her eyes was a kind of terrified apprehensiveness that had Hope’s stomach clawing at his throat to escape.

* * *

The room held more familiarity than Lightning would have liked it to. As she looked around, she remembered each and every moment of training she had had with Serah before they had climbed in to Odin to test drive him for the first time. Weekday mornings, the Farron sisters found themselves there: feet bare against the tanned mat, kendo clubs in their hands, playfully stern expressions on their faces. It was routine for them. Lightning was a skilled fighter, had grown up taking classes on the subject, but Serah needed help. She could pick things up and throw them, but that was of no use to them in their Eidolon, so Lightning taught her what she knew, and together, they came up with a list of things they could unleash against opponents. In that moment, alone in the room that held too many ghosts, the only one that stuck out in Lightning’s memory had been fittingly titled ‘Army of One.’

Commander Rygdea had tugged Lightning and Lebreau both free from the lab over an hour previous, explaining that he had found what could possibly be suitable copilots for Odin, but there was still something that needed to be tested. He needed to be sure that Lightning and whomever her new copilot came to be were compatible in combat, that under the Oracle Drive, they could fight without tripping over themselves. Once upon a time, he had mentioned that their combat should be acted out as a dance, and that l’Cie were perfect partners not just in battle, but on the cold wood of the dance floor. Lightning was not sure she would find another dance partner, not one like Serah. Rygdea had nudged her not unkindly into the training room after telling her about the test, and she waited patiently, imagining what the crop of potentials could be and trying not to at the same time.

The door across from where she stood slid open slowly after what could have only been a few minutes passed and Lightning watched as the group filed in with a sharp eye, sizing each one up when they slipped through the threshold. Not one of them looked a day over twenty-one, each gazing around the room with wide eyes for a moment before noticing that Lightning was standing before them. After that, they tried to poise themselves as something other than terrified, Lightning assumed, but every single one of them looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She was not sure what to say to them, so Lightning merely stayed silent, the same passive expression she had worn for weeks still there, not budging. The kids themselves were silent, as well, and she felt it easier that way.

Another few minutes passed. Commander Rygdea and Lebreau shuffled into the room, the latter with a clipboard clutched to her chest and a nod to Lightning when they locked eyes. She looked uneasy, as if what was going on was something she wished to not partake in. Lightning was not sure how to ask her what the magnitude of this happening was without words. Rygdea explained why they were there in brief, and began without beating around the bush.

“This is an important matter,” he had said. “If you don’t wish to be here, you may leave now. But this needs to be quick, painless. Lightning cannot pilot Odin alone,” there was a small squeak from the back of the group as one of the taller girls scrambled to leave silently, her shoe catching on the stair and tumbling her forward. “The closest city with a functioning Mark-5 Eidolon is Besaid Island. We cannot rely on anyone but ourselves.”

When Rygdea’s speech had ended, half of the group had filtered out of the room, leaving two boys and three girls standing on the steps above the mat. The Commander turned his eyes on Lightning, expression expectant. There was nothing that she could say, no pep talk that she could give them. There had been things that she had said to Serah, several things, but none of those applied to the scraps waiting with baited breath across from her. They weren’t for their ears.

“We’ll do alphabetical order, then?” Lebreau hedged, the tension too much for her after only seconds. She read off the first name that had not been crossed off of her list and the person belonging to it stepped forward, bowing awkwardly, a little slip of a girl, before taking two kendo clubs in her hand, passing one to Lightning. “Five strikes takes the win.”

The potentials dropped like flies after that, each one slightly more skilled than the last, one managing three strikes to Lightning’s five, but each one ending with a the rough bits of Lightning’s club pressed against their throats, the action holding no malice, signalling that they were not going to be her new partner. When one boy remained—pale silver hair and beryl eyes, he had not moved from his spot since he had entered the room—Lightning fought off the panic rising in her chest. He did not seem the type to approach fal’Cie without fear, let alone know how to fight at all. She wondered, fleetingly, if she could request Odin be decommissioned instead.

Lebreau opened her mouth, presumably to call the boy forward for his trial, though she was interrupted, the door opening behind her, the sound drowning out anything she had said. Looking weary and more than slightly perturbed, Bartholomew Estheim stepped into the room. The boy shied away from the new addition, as did both Lebreau and Rygdea, and Lightning put the pieces together easily.

This man was the boy’s father, come to object to the trial. He stood almost a foot taller than Lightning, hair salted and peppered with age, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. There was something about him that had Lightning’s nerves standing on edge, something foreboding hidden in the way that he had entered the room. Bartholomew did not meet the eyes of his son, did not meet the eyes of Lebreau, though, when he spoke, it was directed at her.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, voice low, a hint of a threat there but covered under vague smile he wore. No answer came, not from Lebreau, Rygdea, or from his son. “You’re testing Hope for compatibility?”

“Yes, sir,” Lebreau finally muttered, barely audible even from some feet away. “He has the closest compatibility of those that we tested, and he’s always expressed interest in piloting and Eidolons themselves.” She went on, scrambling to prove that the choice they had made was a good one, and not one to reason taking her position out from under her.

Bartholomew quieted her almost instantly, his fist striking the pillar beside him. Lightning tensed, on her toes but unsure of whether or not she should attack or wait for what was to come. He did not seem like a violent man, but Lightning was not going to leave Lebreau and Rygdea’s (and the boy, Hope; she did not know him, but something tugged at her heartstrings when he flinched at his father’s actions) safety up to chance.

“He’s my son.” The power of his words had Lebreau flinching again, her eyes downcast, looking at the clipboard for some kind of safehaven. “I’m not sacrificing him for this.”

_Sacrificing_.

The kendo club that Lightning had held tightly in her fist dropped to the floor, clattering against the silence that enveloped the room. She stared directly into Bartholomew’s eyes and, when he turned to her, he did not even have the gall to make eye contact with her. The rest of the room gaped at Lightning: her clenched fist, set jaw, stance of someone ready to pounce if needed.

“That’s what these l’Cie are to you? A sacrifice?” Her tone was sharp, enough that she could have cut glass with it had she tried, but even. There was no wavering, nothing holding her back. Her head was swimming, fogged with rage. “My sister… was a lamb out to _slaughter_  for the greater good?”

Bartholomew ignored her, his eyes on the commander and the scientist, his son and Lightning forgotten for a long moment. “I am not losing someone else to this war, Lebreau. Take him off of your list.”

“Dad…!”

From halfway behind the pillar came a small voice, vacillating somewhere between wanting to speak up and fear of what speaking up would earn him. Hope peaked up at his father, the expression on his face matching his tone blow for blow, and edged out from his hiding spot. Lightning watched him, still poised to strike if the need came about.

“If I’m compatible, I need to help. I can’t sit back and watch these things destroy the world. Especially not after… after…” he swallowed around something in his throat, a lump that Lightning was far too familiar with. “If I can help,” he went on, slow and even. “I need to at least try. Please, Dad, let me do this.”

Bartholomew exhaled slowly through his nose, eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. The inner turmoil was shown on his skin, forehead wrinkled with the conflict and eyes screwed shut, thinking. Hope watched his father, very visibly shaken and remaining silent. He prayed to whatever Gods would listen that he would receive consent for this, that a blessing would be given for him to be Lightning’s copilot. Time trudged on while he waited, while they all waited, the room sat still, eyes on anything but the family standing in front of them.

“Test him,” Bartholomew said, looking finally to Lebreau and Rygdea, his expression softened considerably, though guarded still. He did not look happy about his final decision, but the light that hit his son’s eyes was nothing to scowl at. “If he’s even remotely incompatible, _do not_  put him in that suit. Do you hear me?”

The scientist and the Commander nodded quickly, ‘yes, sir’s coming from both of them before Bartholomew made to walk out of the room, the door open and hissing mechanically while it moved. He glanced to Hope as he exited, and his son opened his mouth to say something, but Bartholomew was gone from view before the words had come out, the sound from the door blanketing anything he could have said.

Hope faced Lightning, who had retrieved the clubs and offered one to Hope, face blank but eyes a brighter blue than they had been in any article’s picture, any interview, framed with tears but refusing to spill over. She was tougher in person, more controlled outside of the Eidolon than Hope had imagined her. The club in her hand, she moved back into a readied stance, looking toward Hope and waiting.

As they fought, Lightning realized why Lebreau had picked him. Their dance was something of the ages, one that could have easily gone on and on, without choreography and just easy. In the back of Lightning’s mind, she believed that this was more fluid than even hers and Serah’s had been. Each movement she made, Hope countered with perfect accuracy. Behind them, Lebreau had been in the middle of informing Rygdea that the boy had not an ounce of formal training in him outside of what the Academy put students through for a physical training credit.

It ended five-four, in Lightning’s favor, but the last blow had taken longer to spar than those before it. Hope was catching on quickly, and he grinned when Lightning had nodded to him, taken the club from his hand to shove back into the storage caches. There was no meaningless conversation when Lightning returned to the group. They launched right in to plans for the next day.

“Go home, get some rest,” Rygdea told them, smiling warmly for the first time in Gods knew how long. “We’re going to need you both here by eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Lebreau’s going to test Odin’s Oracle Drive on you two, and you’ll need clear heads for that.”

Hope gathered his things after being dismissed, slowly, as if waiting for the room to clear before he left. Lightning waited. She knew, could see it in his motions, that he had something to say to her, something he had held in since their test had ended. His hand hovered over the door’s release, and Lightning, leaning on the pillar, arms crossed, counted down three, two, one, and on cue, he turned, question perched on the tip of his tongue.

Lightning cocked an eyebrow, waiting.

“You’re a really good pilot,” he said, surprising her. “I’m sorry about… about Serah. She didn’t deserve that for trying to save the world. I’m… I… I’m sorry.”

“What did you mean earlier?” She asked, pushing herself off of the pillar and bending to snag the jacket she had shed in the beginning from the floor. “‘Especially not after’ what?”

Hope rocked back on his heels, a child caught in exposition that he did not want to be wrapped up in. “My mom was killed when Lindzei attacked that hospital. My dad couldn’t do anything about it because the Academy’s first Eidolon was still in production. He still beats himself up about not being ready for the attack, and I think even in the state that he was, Alexander could have fought it off bu—” Holding up her hand, Lightning cut him off, and Hope knew with just that action that he should get to the point. “I’ve wanted to help fight since then, but he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to me.”

“Understandable.” Lightning told him, nodding singularly. “When you’re someone’s everything, you’ll never know what it feels like when you’re ripped away from them.”

* * *

What Hope had not taken into account upon being selected to copilot Odin was how Noel would react. He knew where his friend stood on the idea, they had discussed it over and over again but those had been solely what-ifs, nothing that they thought was going to come to pass in their lifetime. Hope had forgotten about mentioning it entirely, the adrenaline rush of dreams come partway true clouding his mind for the remainder of his classes, but when the two met up at their usual spot after classes had ended for the day, the look on Noel’s face had a block of ice forming in Hope’s stomach. Someone had informed him. Hope wanted to cry very suddenly.

He approached Noel slowly, a small animal easing into the path of something much larger and much more terrifying when in the state of calm that Hope had begun to call the eye of the storm. His arms were crossed, bag slung over his shoulder and affecting disinterest that anyone but Hope could have easily believed. The tears welled in Hope’s eyes like a kid caught in a lie, and he stood close enough to Noel to feel the tension in his muscles. He wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, but he knew that would make Noel’s ears begin to smoke if he even attempted.

“I didn’t think to look for you afterwards,” Hope confessed, reaching to place his hand on Noel’s forearm. “I was so hung up on the idea that I forgot.”

“I know,” Noel responded quickly, his tone clipped, expression hardening with each letter that he uttered. “Luckily someone found me and told me, or you might’ve forgotten to let me know altogether. I would have seen it on next week’s special before you _remembered_.”

Hope wanted to yell at Noel, to tell him to stop treating him like the bad guy. The moment he opened his mouth to shout it, Lightning’s words rang back to him, ominous and echoing. _When you’re someone’s everything, you’ll never know what it feels like when you’re ripped away from them_. Promptly, Hope snapped his mouth shut.

“What were you even _thinking_?” Noel asked, looked confused and hurt where he should have looked outraged. That was another blow to Hope’s chest. “Did your dad drag you into this?”

“No,” Hope told him, staring at the hand on Noel’s arm instead of up at the taller man. “He objected to it, actually, I as—”

“As he should have,” Noel interjected. Hope flinched slightly, but kept going.

“Asked him to let me. I want to protect Cocoon, Noel,” their eyes met, and it was then that Hope truly realized that he needed to stand up for this, needed to hold his dreams just as close as he held Noel while he spoke. “I want to protect you, and my dad, our _future_  here. If the fal’Cie win this war, you can bet on it that we won’t have one of those.”

Noel stayed quiet for a long moment, breathing evenly above Hope and gazing down at him. He had to understand that Hope was not choosing to pilot to hurt him, but to protect the life that they had grown so accustomed to over the years, the routine they had built and what was to come. Fleetingly, waiting for a response, Hope thought about staying with him forever, the family they could build and the lives they could lead. He thought about it being wiped away, clean slate, if the world came to an end, if they would be together in the afterlife.

“This is what you want?” Noel asked, his tone much softer than Hope had expected it to be, intimate, almost. They were standing in the courtyard, but wrapped in a sheet of their own universe. “Right now?”

“Yes.” Hope answered. His tone was dripping with finality, praying it came across to Noel as anything but a ‘me or this’ ultimatum. “I want to be a pilot and I want to protect what I care about.”

With a sigh, Noel nodded, shifting on his feet and pulling Hope in for a hug, his arm wrapped around his shoulders. They were quiet, listening to the low hum of people around them, all making for their transportation home for the day. Noel and Hope had missed their train already. Hope nuzzled the tip of his nose against Noel’s chest, inhaling a huge breath and exhaling slowly.

“Promise me you’ll think about yourself before you go diving in to danger head-first.” Noel said, forehead resting against Hope’s. “That you’ll remember that Odin’s not indestructible, and you’ll be back after everything.” Hope nodded, smiling softly, hidden in the folds of Noel’s jacket. “I don’t know how Lightning does it.”

Hope peered up at him, perplexed. “Does what?” 

Noel mirrored Hope’s smile and took his hand, leading him leisurely toward the train station. The sky was darkening around them, and they both knew that rain was in the forecast “Stands the idea of waking up each morning without Serah around.”

* * *

Standing beside Lighting in a suit of his own, made specifically for the l’Cie piloting Odin, that Friday morning had Hope believing that he was still in bed, dreaming, and had been since he had fallen asleep with Noel on Wednesday night. The tips of his fingers tingled with excitement that he had not felt since he was small, gazing over the first crop of blueprints for the Eidolon Alexander in his father’s study, before he was even aware of what an Eidolon was, before he knew what the coming of fal’Cie meant. In Lightning’s eyes, Hope was certain, he was still somewhere close to that child, idolizing things that had broken her with no sign of piecing her back together.

The Oracle Drive was not yet attached, and Hope had read more than enough about the system to know that whatever one l’Cie thought up would appear as if by magic in the mind of the second, the Drive taking hold of the memories, impulses and instincts of the two l’cie and spreading them out as if in one mind, once consciousness. There were rules to the Drive system, more than Hope could remind himself of while they waited for the switch to be flipped, let alone knew of. Lighting was the image of perfect calm, face blank, hands at her sides, while Hope’s brain was a wreck, thoughts scattered and not coming back to him when he called. He knew, above all else, that he needed to have a clear mind for this to be a success, but there was too much for him to shut off, and he could not flip those switches as quickly as Lebreau was typing information into a computer on a deck below them, the sound echoing through speakers in their helmets.

“Alright, kids,” she called, smile ringing like bells through her tone. “I’ll give you both a second to shake things off, but we need to start soon or we’ll be behind schedule for the day. Hope,” he nodded once, not sure with angle she could see them from. “Remember, don’t reach for the C.A.I.T. Centered-slash-Accessible Impulse Tangents. Don’t focus on one memory, okay? Just keep your head clear.”

Hope nodded once more, focusing on a quiet place like Lebreau had told him that he should, and, through the microphone that connected him and Lightning as well as the people up above behind the glass, he heard Lightning sigh, long and drawn out and he wished he could see her face right then, if only for some form of proof that he was doing alright so far.

They counted down from ten in Hope’s ears, Lebreau’s voice growing further and further away before disappeared altogether, replaced with the sounds of wind, rushing water, and all that Hope could see was blue. Memories, his and Lightning’s, whizzed past his eyes, lingering in his mind only the seconds necessary for him to observe a handful of things. Nothing stuck in his mind, and that was the name of the game. They came out of the initial entry stages quicker than Hope would have guessed they would, and he was grinning when he felt the tug at his mind to move, as if it was his own thought.

“Good, good!” Lebreau called to them. “Try moving your left leg, then right,” they did both, succeeding easily. “Right arm, left… Fan-freaking-tastic, you two!” She cheered, plopping herself down in her seat, looking up at Rygdea behind her, who looked as if several worlds of weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I think we’ve found our pilot.”

Something shifted behind Hope’s eyes while he tried to celebrate, while he tried to pull Lightning to celebrate with him, a dark shadow flitting from memory to memory, hiding behind cover until it was in the front row of Hope’s mind, clouding everything, and he could see it. There was something dark tainting the edges of what was on his mind, something pulling through his mind slower than the others, and he was not adept enough to realize it was not even _his_  memory, that _he_ was not the person conjuring these thoughts.

The night played slowly, each frame of the memory slipping by as if he was trying his best to never forget it. There was Serah, there was Anima, and there was Lightning. No sound could be heard for a long moment, no sound could be heard as things went well, but the blow that Anima dealt to Odin’s chest shook the track lose and Hope could suddenly hear, so vividly it was as if he had been there, Lightning yelling for Serah to stay focused, that she needed her help her, c’mon, sis! The memory skipped as if someone had rapidly picked up and placed down the needle, and then there was a hole in the side of Odin’s right cheek.

Several things happened before Hope’s eyes then, most of which did not seem real, seemed as if they had been half dreamt, drawn on the fogged window of a train that was moving by a different landscape with each passing second. He can head Lightning somewhere in the back of his mind, knows it’s her voice but doesn’t know what she’s telling him. He can’t see anything other than darkness, spots of white dotting his vision, and when he blinks this away, alarms are going off and he’s seated in the corner of Odin’s Drive Cavity, as far away from the hole that had been ripped open in it, the hole that did not exist, and he was babbling something about please, please save me, something that didn’t sound like it was coming from his mouth. 

Lightning is in front of him, speaking very slowly, calmly, and it takes several seconds for Hope’s ears to clear of the cotton that wasn’t actually there blocking the words before he can hear what she’s saying.

“Hope, Hope… Come on. You’re here, you’re safe. That wasn’t you memory!” She had her hands on his upper arms, holding him still. Hope hadn’t even known he was shaking until then. “Hope, you’re fine, that was my fault.”

He was breathing hard, chest heaving in his suit, and nodded shakily, still not fully understanding what Lightning was telling him, but he knew well enough that she was looking for him to acknowledge that he at least knows that she’s speaking, speaking to him, even. There’s a beat of silence, no words, filled only with rapid beeping and Lebreau asking questions through the speakers. Hope’s fingers were shaking, he couldn’t feel his legs, and when he shifted, he was glad that he fell forward. His arms wrapped around Lightning’s neck and he cried, and, he thought, later, when recapping the day’s events to Noel on their train ride home, Lightning hugged him back. He didn’t need to be connected to her consciousness to know that they both needed even that small expression of discomposure.

* * *

Terms used/Glossary:

Coliseum - Shatterdome  
Ediolon - Jaeger   
l'Cie - pilot  
fal'Cie - Kaiju  
Cocoon - world  
Palumpolum - location of story  
Academy - sciences team  
PSICOM - military   
Augusta Tower - main sciences building


End file.
